NCHSAA Board Of Directors Takes Actions At Winter Meeting
CHAPEL HILL— The North Carolina High School Athletic Association Board of Directors completed its winter Board meeting on Thursday at the NCHSAA offices.
The Board did approve a seeding process for all 64-team bracketed sports for the 2014-15 academic year, which will provide some consistency across those sports. Football seeding will remain different from other sports.
Among the other major items approved by the Board:
— Recommended clarifying language on eight-quarter rule for football, noting that it is for ninth and 10th graders only
—Eliminated rule limiting student-athletes to two all-star football and basketball contests during school year; rule had been based on NCAA rule which is no longer in force.
—Adjustment in men’s tennis calendar to avoid facility conflict. Finals now will be Thursday and Friday, May 8-9, 2014; in addition, adjusted dual team tennis calendar from May 12 and 14, to May 13 and 15 for appropriate rounds.
—Adjustment in indoor track calendar for 2013-14 season, to approve one championship on Friday and two on Saturday since a classification is being added according to terms of the NCHSAA regulations. Dates are now February 7-8, 2014.
—Adjustment in 2014 lacrosse playoff calendar due to 4-A satisfying numbers to have its own men’s championship, with additional round for 4-A men.
—Approved a number of editorial changes in language in Handbook for various regulations, mostly for clarification
—Approved playoff calendar for 2014-15
—Approved 2013-14 annual budget
—Rules clinic attendance for head coaches: if requirement for attending clinic is not met prior to first play date in the sport, coach will not be allowed to coach in contests until he or she is compliant, absent showing cause as currently occurs.
—Approved applying the same number restrictions (one less than a team) for coaches coaching an outside team in season as is applied to coaching a team outside the sports season but during the school year. Effective August 2014.
— Approved penalty for schools not paying their catastrophic insurance by start of fall playoffs and membership dues by start of winter playoffs. If not compliant by this time, all teams at said school will be ineligible for the playoffs. Does not replace $100 fine for late submission.
—Approved both the incident and penalty report and ejection report
—Approved that schools pay officials in accordance with local fiscal policy, rather than regional supervisors paying officials; currently a small percentage of regional supervisors pay their officials and 88 percent of schools currently pay officials. With RefPay through Arbiter or other on-line pay services, schools can set up payment to officials and not have to produce checks and there is also a financial savings for schools
—Require all NCHSAA coaches to take NFHS Fundamentals of Coaching course for certification with effective date August 1, 2015; currently non-faculty coaches and new hires are required to take it, and over 7,000 have already taken it in North Carolina.
—Require all NCHSAA coaches to take “NFHS Concussion In Sports—What You Need to Know” course as a minimum, which is free. Some counties already have their own concussion-related sessions, which could meet the requirement
—Require that any head or assistant coach ejected from a contest to take “NFHS Teaching and Modeling Behavior” course before coaching the next contest, effective July 1, 2014
—In men’s golf, change current reporting/scoring to five golfers, with best four scores counting. Currently it is six scores, with four counting.
— Recommend using a playoff assignment formula to assign officials for regional supervisors and local officiating associations similar to football and basketball.
A couple of proposals were tabled, including a stroke average standard for regional qualifiers in men’s golf; a season limitation in games/matches in volleyball, dual team tennis and dual team wrestling; and a “mercy rule” in football, a point differential where the game would automatically resort to a running clock unless terminated by mutual agreement.
NCHSAA commissioner Davis Whitfield said, “We had a number of issues to address and our Board worked hard to determine what was in the best interest of our membership.”
